Stephen Bayliss's Blog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyCPZAo0C2k

I think he needs to do a bit more training. But he always seems to finish these events he enters with very little training. He works very long hours so makes the most of his weekends and does what he can before and after work.

He is raising money for the sports aid foundation. My brother, myself and Bella have been beneficiaries as younger athletes of this charity and it was very welcome to all of us and we would like to think other young athletes can get a bit of help with the costs of doing there sport when they possibly don’t have many funds. Here is the link if you want to give a small or large amount of money:) http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/MarkBayliss

Yes Duna golf(the resort where teamTBB have spent so time this winter) is nearly empty and is perparing to close for a few weeks to do some re painting.

The bike camps and triathlon camps seem to have all but finished. We see very few big groups of cyclists and triathletes out on the roads. In March is was really busy, so many groups out training.

We will be here for a few more weeks till we head to Lanzarote for the Ironman.

Charlie has been crawling all over the place so we have to watch him as his favourite places to go are always the places we don’t want him to go. Like the bathroom and towards plug sockets!

It was the 2nd running of Challlenge Fuertaventura. It was a really good race just like last year. Great venue, really good testing course, safe quiet smooth roads. Loads of volunteers. And a really great atmosphere, which is the norm for Challenge races. What I was surprised with was that there was only 240 entries. I hope that people will hear about what a great race this is and come next year, it is such a good race to do for european athletes to start the season with. So come next year, you will love it.

My race was not so great. As you can read in Bella’s blog we were all a bit ill on race day, I don’t know if that is a great excuse, but for whatever reason I was a way off the pace on Sunday. But I was so happy to see Bella out there racing, she is getting her fitness back it was a great start to her comeback, especially racing with a cold and no sleep for a few days:)

I don’t feel too ill this morning, so I hope to recover quickly and get back to training and be good and strong for Ironman Lanzarote in 5 weeks time.

Chalie although not feeling 100% seemed to really enjoy his time with his grand parents and seeing all the athletets racing around. Here at Playitas here was mesmorised by the spin clases that go on, he thought it was fascinating:)

Well done Dan! the training we have been doing in Gran Canaria is working:)

It has been great having Dan and Mathias here the last 3 weeks, we all pushed each other in different ways. I think we would make a good IM realay team. Dan would do a great swim (he said while swimming 1:10s at the pool, it is all in the head you know, maybe for him, for Mathias and I it is in the shoulders!), Mathias would do a great bike, (he says he is just getting back into it, but my power meter in my legs suggested I was riding pretty hard just holding his wheel in the valley, he said he wanted to get back to the hotel to make lunch!) I would hope to finish off with a fast run. I ran a track session yesterday with the winner of the Gothenburg marathon, he ran a 2:19, so I have decided that is what I would run in our realy:)
Dan amd Mathias has been replaced by John, Bella first ever triathlon coach, and Rachel, an freind of Bella’s who has won a few Xterra races. We are still all having fun in Gran Canaria

Before I left for Abu Dhabi I had a pre race hair trim so I am currently looking a bit more race ready:)

Dan and I flew out to Abu Dhabi on Wednesday afternoon from Gran Canaria.  We had a fine journey here and were both very glad to get to our extremely comfortable hotel.  The race organistaion really look after the athletes well at this race.  We have been making the most of the half board too:)

We are here for the Abu Dhabi international triathlon.

The race for me went ok.  I had a fine swim coming out just behind Dan in the front group of the swim with just 1 guy ahead with a lead of about 1min.

Our group was about 15 or so guys which stayed together for much of the 200km bike ride.  Riders gradually started getting dropped from this group.  I lost touch at about 150km,  and rode the rest with 1 other guy.  We were both too far down at the end of the bike to be incontact for a top 10.  I ran ok but not mega fast.  And finished in 13th place.

All in all it was a fine way to start the year.  Next up is Challenge Half Fuertaventura in about 6weeks time.  This is also a great race for people who want to start there European race season with a well organised race in a gerat location.

We are flying back to Gran Canaria tonight and I can’t wait to see Bella and Charlie I have really missed them for these few days we have been away.

The snow has tried to stop us, now the Spanish air traffic controllers have tried to stop us! But we hope to catch our flight back to the UK tomorrow afternoon, fingers crossed.

We left Cozumel on Wednesday morning and have had a fairly indirect route home. But the main time waste is being here in Madrid, but we have tried to make the most of our time here. Unfortunately our airport hotel is very unimpressive, lots to moan about there. I think the worst part is the paper thin walls!

Anyway we have found a great pool in Madrid so have been swimming there. Then today we spent the rest of the afternoon in Madrid centre, rather than go back to the crappy hotel. We bought new coats as it is very cold and we don’t have anything suitable with us. I was getting some strange looks walking around with all my cycling tops on at once and my Team TBB head sweat with a pair of my pants(underpants for those amercans reading this) on my head held on by the head sweat:) 

We had some lunch, printed up our RyanAir boarding cards( if you forget they charge you a fortune to print it for you:)),  then headed back to the hotel on the Metro(underground trains) ,  the Metro system seems to be very good and a decent price at 1 euro per journey of any length.

The last 3 weeks since the Home de Ferro race we have stayed in a nice apartment in Ibiza town. One draw back was that there was no internet in the apartment, but there was a library next door with free internet so we used that regularly. The only thing is, I am a very large amount lazier than Bella(although I don’t like to call it “lazy” I usually say to Bella that it is because I am a man and I have different hormones and so I need a nap sometimes) and so hence I have not been keeping up with my interneting as much as Bella.

Anyhow, the training has been great here in Ibiza.

A normal day starts with Breakfast and Spanish news on TV, I studied Sapnish at School(I got a D(for dunce):) so I told Bella I understood it all and would guess what the daily news was from the pictures and the odd word I could understand.

We would swim at the very nice 25m indoor pool in Ibiza town. Which was one of 3 in the town and there are many more pools around the island.

The riding was excellent. Very good road surface, some flat riding lots of hilly riding, and all very very quiet, especially on the north side of the island.

We would run at the 400m track or down the promenade, it is great to run by the sea, there is something energising about the ocean.

In between session we would pop to the supermarket, which their was a wide choice of, but our considerations were: Could we leave our bike safely, was it on route and did they sell greek yoghurt:)

Of an evening there I would enjoy my usual ritual, which is the same whatever part of the world I am in, of sitting in front of the TV with a smal beer. I had a choice of a few american TV shows that were on in english everynight, same shows in the same order. So it would start with “My name is Earl” They would show 3 straight episodes every night! I loved this show, I had never really seen much of it before, but it has become my favourite TV show at the moment.
Then we would get 2 episodes os “Scubs”, I also grew to like this but not as much as “my name is Earl”
I would then start to get very tierd but would hang in there to watch 1 episode of “American Dad” I also liked this show alot, very funny:)  I would occasionally stay up to watch the next episode of “american Dad”  but by this time it was 9pm and so I was pretty much dead by then!

At this moment we are in Cancun, Mexico.  Today we take a short flight across to Cozumel wheere I will race the Ironman on Sunday.

Bella and I are on the front page of the the Diario de Ibiza this morning with this photo and the title “Man and Woman of Iron” 

So this is the picture on the front page of the Ibiza news, nice:)

Ibiza is special to both of us as we have raced here and won a few times.  I won my age group at the World Long Distance championships here in Ibiza in 2003,  then Bella and I both won here in 2006,  Bella also won here in 2002.  Then yesterday we managed to both win again, it is actually our first double win as a married couple:)

As Bella has said in her blog,  we woke up to wind a rain bashing on our window the morning of the race.  It was going to add a little extra challenge to the day.

So my race started well.  In the swim there was a group of 4 of us that bashed through the waves in the swim to exited onto the bikes together.

I was in 2nd place for the first 10km which was a straight section of road,  then the next 10km was a twisty hilly section then a dead turn and back to the start, 3 laps in total.  I went to the front on the twisty section and gapped 2 of the group,  I stayed in the lead till the next lap with  1 guy still behind.  I managed to gap him this time on this section and so pushed on.  I was feeling good and had a good lead,  then,  pisshhh,  oh sh+t, a puncture,  so I stop and change the tubular pretty quickly but I get passed.  I get going again and give chase.  I managed to catch him,  then tried hard to get a gap again,  this time it was harder as my legs were tired but on the main climb I got a gap and so pushed on. 

At the end of the bike I had a 1min 30sec lead.  The run had 2 out and back sections so I could see my competition.  I could see 2nd place was running well and over the course of the run was taking some time out of me and got to 30secs with 1 lap of 7.5km to go.  I gave it what I had left and found some extra pace and pulled away to win by 2min 30secs.  It was a great feeling to win.

I had seen out on the course that Bella had a really good lead and looked comfortable so I was confident she would come home with the win too,  which she did and I greeted her at the finish line and we were both so happy to have come to Ibiza and again managed to both win.

Infact it was important we both won. Because in 2006 when we both won here before,  my parents were here to watch,  which was fantastic,  but they took all the papers with our pictures in home,  but the bag got lost!  So this year we had to come back and get some new news papers with our pictures on.

A big thank you to Emma for all her support yesterday it was great to have you there to give us splits and just give us great support all weekend,  thank you!

Yes winter seems to of arrived here in Leysin.  Being British I have an in built tendency to talk about the weather, so here is a blog mainly about the weather here at the moment:)

Infact this morning we woke up to a completely white Leysin. It has been a very wintery day with strong winds, which is quite unusual for Leysin. We spent a while on the turbo today.

Below is some pictures from a few days ago. 

So the weather here in Leysin is getting pretty chilly.  Time to move on I think.  We head to Ibiza this week.  We will race the Home de Ferro race on Sunday.  Bella and I both won this race 4 years ago.  We also raced there in 2003,  for the ITU World Long Distance Championships, but we didn’t know each other.  Bella finished 4th and I won the 18-24 age group. 

Ibiza is a very beautiful Island.  It is obviously very well known for it’s clubbing.  But it is also a perfect place to do some triathlon.  Especially at this time of the year when it is a bit quieter.  We are looking forward to getting there:)